A Lesson in Betrayal, Part Eight
Team Titan Think Tank. Issue 15 "A Lesson in Betrayal" (Part 8) Front cover- Cain flies at the reader, pterodactyl wings out behind him, spread across the cover, as fire roils in his mouth, ready to leap out The Games Master punches a fist into the air as energy shimmers around him. The grey hull of a space ship elongates over his body to a point at the front. Metal wings fold out. Along with blue spoiler fins either side of the booster. With a victorious barrel roll it spins off towards the hole in the sky. Reb watches as GM, surrounded by the Starfox construct, flies in through the hole, his mouth wide open in awe. GM lands behind him, so they are back to back, the bottom of the spaceship being on the floor as GM lands, so GM is in between Reb and Tops. "WEAPONS RECHARGE- SINGLE TARGET LOCK. FULL POWER!" He spins his arms as his chest cannons spin 360 and the beams spiral at Mr Tops. Tops staggers back a step with each blow, but remains on his feet, though he looks haggard; he is a tough customer. Reb grabs onto a wing. "Sorry about this, Mr GM but i can't miss this chance!" He drags himself up and stands on the wing. "I CAN'T LET YOU DO THAT STAR FOX!" He goes as deep as he can as he points dramatically at no one. We cut to Sonne as he looks down into the black depths and descends. He plunges into complete darkness, where only the red glow of his force-field helm and the glow from his armour rivets can be seen. He holds out the palms of his gauntlets in front of him, as the red glow in them increases in brightness. We cut to Yu and Tops. Yu of course, still lying with his back on Top's massive back, Top's face still partially buried in snow. Yu looks up, but can barely see the sky for the canopy and towering evergreen trees surround them. He flips up onto his feet, stood next to Mr. Tops. He spares a glance down at him, before adopting a defensive stance, bo staff held ready, eyes darting back and forth. Mister Tops stands, shaking snow off of his head. The comic flash backs, to show the Yu who teleported, making the other Yu hit him, knock him through a miror, then fall as then Yu teleports and swings him through a mass of tree branches. The comic zooms in on bulging reptilian yellow eyes. "You treacherous SWINE!" He bulls at Yu, horns first. Yu is taken by surprise, as the horns strike him in the chest, as it wasn't Tops he was preparing for, it seems. His hands still come up quickly and grab Top's two upper horns as Yu digs his feet into the ground, pushing up, as he lifts his arms as high as he can to hold the tall humanoid dinosaur back. "Grrrr... you're going down, false... Yu..." "Hnngh...wrong...one...Mr. Tops..." "Oh yes... you teleprot away.. make my ally strike me... then teleport back... to kick me... into a load of trees.. real benevolent... have to try... better... than... that... chum!" We cut to the false Redemption and Rob, as they see the other Tops getting beaten, and GM "Ooh, i can fight Games Master!" he puts a finger to his chin "But maybe he's too cool for me.... he is making the other me look WAY COOL right now... damn! Thats it!" He looks down at his feet and holds out his hands, as he makes himself an X-Wing out of energy, as his Rob disappears. "All right... barrel roll THIS!" The X-Wing the Reb is riding opens fire with its lasers, the lasers smash against Starfox. "OH SWEET!" says the real Reb. The lasers ound into Starfox, ripping holes into parts of Games Master's energy construct. The energy construct 'explodes'; its not real damage, but for visual effect. Reb is flung onto his back and Games Master collapses. "Mr GM, you okay!?" There is no reply - a panel shows GM face down - eyes shut "X-Wings -are- cooler than Starfox. I -knew- it!" The false Reb fist punches the air and leaps up and as he lands, he does the peace sign. "Thats more like it" says Tops. He reaches down at the prone Reb and grabs him by the leg "This is the worst simulation ever! Especially you, Mr Tops and you other meEEEEEEE!!' he calls out as Tops flings him into the desert. The top hat wearing Mr Psychic nods in approval. "Well done, that man." He walks, cane a-tap-tapping, as he goes to look out of the desert hole just as Reb hits the sand, a brief white flash of energy cocooning around him as he seems to land without harm. "Lets sedate him. I abhor all this violence, even if it is dealing with duplicates." Mr Psychic looks down at Reb, his monocle flashing a variety fo bright kaleidoscopic colours. Reb seems partially entranced by the monocle, not quite able to tear his eyes away "Shiny.." he mutters. Mr Psyhic then presses a top hat button, as he is surrounded by a pink-shimmering field and taps his cane as a brief purple shimmer appears at the bottom of it. The comic cuts to Yu, limping his way through the corridor, visibly battered, as he comes across the back of Tonic, hastily moving down corridors after Mr Psychic, who is not in view. "...Tonic?" He seems taken aback by her unexpected change in attire. She jumps "Y...yes?" "What-?" He shakes his head. "I...I need help..." Using his staff for support, he watches her carefully, unsure of her. She turns to look back down the way she'd been heading "MR PSYCHIC, COME BACK! W...what happened?" "I met...the false me and Mr. Tops...we fought." "H...how do I know y...you're not the fake one?" He sighs wearily, sagging. "You don't. I don't know anything...about you that the false ones...or Cain...wouldn't. You'll just have to...watch me. I'll watch you." "I...I know the Mr Psychic I am with i...is the real one..." she glances down at the hat in her hands, and offers him a shoulder to lean on "A...and you could drop m...me in a punch anyway, even i...if you are the f...fake one." The comic cuts to Rob; his eyes turn red "DANGER TO CREATOR UNIT- DETECTED CONCUSSION. HURT, HURT, HURT, HURT!" His arms flail round as his chest cannons once more seperate into two sections, this time one section of cannons focus on Mr Tops the other, Mr Psychic, as he opens fire. Mr Psychic's force field is wither edapart like a tissue plunged into water, though it absorbs most of the energy before failing. There is a still a single scorch mark against the back of Psychic's jacket as he flung out of the hole and falls unconscious as he hits the desert sand, falling a few feet in front of Reb, as the boy stands up, dusting himself off, and then the Psychic hologram winks out of existance. Tops is flung out as well, not screaming, as he is already unconscious, and winks out of existance, a few feet before he hits the ground. The sky shatters open above Reb, as Sonne flies out of it. "Okay... went down... ended up... above... then down again..." He lands a few feet behind Reb. "And in a desert. That was weird." He looks up "Come on, Cain!" he yells. "Right, I'd be very dumb not to ask this... but if you were an evil duplicate you'd tell me right...PINKY SWEAR!" he holds his pinky out. "My evil dupe was pretty convinincing actually, but Cain worked him out.... not sure how I work out if you're the real too... you might pinky swear and then hit me with a whale or something. CAIN!" he looks up and shouts again."YOU'RE BETTER AT THIS!" "Yeah...you're right...you need to help GM first though. You've got the skills." He points up to GM. "Okay. Cool. If he's still there, he definitely won't be a sim..." He looks to Reb. "So whats a pinky swear?" He smiles. We cut to Tonic as she walks down the next corridor, helping Yu. She walks past the Hole to Hell on her left and on the right is the corridor with Rob, and about twenty feet behind him, Reb on an X-Wing and the hole to the desert on their right. There is no sign of Mr Psychic. Reb waves. "Hi Dr Toni!" "Y...You're n...not Reb, a...are you? Reb w...would be more w...worried about Yu...than a...about saying hi to m...me..." "I know you're real, the fake one attacked me. But... I don't know about Mister Yu... sorry. You think he's real. I haven't seen him yet." His shoulders sag at his mistake, as if deep in shame She clutches her head in her hands, screwing up her eyes for a second "...Ugh...I h...hate t...this..." Yu remains silent for now, eyes darting back and forth between Tonic and Reb. Tonic's eyes focus on Reb, screwing up tightly, and then dart back and forward in the air around him rapidly as though tracking something moving, but nothing visibly changes in it at all. "N...Never t...tried this b...before Y...Yu, c...cross your f...fingers for me..." "WARNING- THIS CREATOR UNIT NOT ORIGINAL! DO NOT BELIEVE DATA FROM AUDIO!" The Reb on the x-wing suddenly shivers, blinks, yawns, then curls up and...goes to sleep? the X-wing blinks out of existance as the Reb hits the floor and disappears with a flash. Yu braces himself, watching Tonic carefully. The mirrors near to the now asleep Reb are covered in ice "W...wow, it a...actually w...worked..." We cut to the other Yu and the real Mister Tops, locked in combat. Yu releases the dino's horns and as he charges, Yu quickly taps his teleporter and disappears. "Cease this trickery! The real Yu would not indulge in such foul play!" Tops bellows. Yu grabs a hold of a branch as he reappears in a tree, a little way up, standing on another branch. "You're wrong: I tried to push you into the trees just now, to break your fall." "Well... i suppose if you were the fake, that would mean the real Yu abandoned me... which does not make much sense." He scratches his head. "My apologies, my friend. Lets get out of here and aid the others before your false self gets up to some trickery, shall we?" As Tops starts to climb a tree, Yu looks up from where he is higher in the branches but cannot see the sky, so hits his teleporter and ends up back in the corridor, by the hole. Yu cups his free hand by his mouth, the other still holding his bo. "It's up here! Can you make it?" "I'll climb as I high as i can and then see if i can leap into the hole! Go ahead, I assume your duplicate with me up to foul doings!" We cut to Sonne and Reb in the desert. Out of the hole in the sky flies Cain Cain descends to stand by Gunn's side, pausing to lift a foot out of the sand and to try and kick the excess off of the foot disaprovingly. "You called, Sonne?" "Yeah.. its all right, worked it out now. This is definitely the real Reb... provided there is an inert Games Master up there." He points at the original sky hole. "You want to check for me?" "I dare say I'd like to check *with* you. And to have poor Reb accompany us as well... this is hardly the ideal environment for any of us, is it?" "Okay. Come on Reb." Sonne holds out his hand for Reb "I think a duplicate Sonne would know what a pinky swear was..." he thinks. "Besides, in these times of distrust, we can't afford to lose sight of one another for a moment. There's no telling when a dupe could try and sneak its way into our group if we stopped paying the slightest amount of attention." Reb gives Sonne his hand and he looks to Cain, watching. "I don't have enough information to assess you believability, Mr Cain." "I'm afraid all I can give you is Gunn's word, and my concern. You *are* alright, aren't you, Reb? I do hope you've had time to fit your little gift before we came in here", Cain says, knowingly. "I did, thank you." He nods and smiles. "I'm watching you, Mr Cain, and I will decide later." "Good. Good..." Cain says, turning his back on Gunn and Reb and flexing his wings. He mutters "It'd be a *shame* if something happened to you..." Then his eyes go wide as he looks up to the hole, to see another Cain, this one yellow and only a few feet tall, rocket down toward him with its own miniature wings. The small Cain's foot claws are raised, like an owl about to claim a shrew for its dinner. Out of the hole leaps Rob, who lands on the sand on his feet, holding GM in his arms. "Oh, sparks!" says Sonne at the second Cain. "ALLY BROUGHT FOR REPAIRS." "Think Tank!" mini-Cain yells, a shrill, piercing sound, "Restrain the Cain dupe, or we'll be seeing some *real* supervillainy!" "Alas, my friend.. you're a little late for that!" says the full sized Cain. "Activate phase 3!" The sky above the team shatters, as Yu and Tonic land in the sand next to them, as the sky seals over, and they all hear the TROMP TROMP of marching. In the distance they see silhouettes aproaching, hundreds of them, as they see the first of the velociraptors, combat armour-wearing, assault rifle wielding, velociraptors, as the false Cain flies into the air "Ha...finally got one right first try..." Reb sighs. Tonic isn't moving and seems disturbingly limp. "No, you... you can't, you..." mini-Cain feebly yelps at the large Cain, before his arms sag, he looks to the floor, and thinks .oO( Am I really that good at being bad? ) "DANGER DETECTED!" Yu struggles to rise after taking a few moments to recover his breath, propping himself up on his bo. He takes in his surroundings, the unmoving Tonic, the others, the approaching army. He grimaces. "Broomsticks..." Psychic's thought bubble comes from a space where no character or the reader can see anything, having remained completely hidden. CUT Battling Briton jolts up suddnely, in the Obs room "What? Thats a joke right, Red?" "No, Steve. The Rumble Rumble just activated lethal protocols." "Was that in the program, or another one of your... improvisations?" "No, old friend. This... is new. The Rumble Room appears to be simulating Cain... beyond effectively." "Then stop it!" "I can't control it... only ask it." "Then TELL it! My son is in there, god damn it!" "It... is not responding." Battling Briton hangs his head "Get Laura in here. Now!" End of issue.